What Would Happen if You Didn't Wake Up?
by BlackBaby
Summary: One/shot. Natara reflects on her life and relationships after a fatal shooting.


_**What would happen if you didn't wake up?**_

_My name is Natara Williams. I'm 33 years old. I like Chinese food, especially Mongolian Beef, and I died today._

_I know, I know, way to drop a bomb. I like Chinese food, I died? They don't really go together. Except, in this case, they do. I died today doing something as ordinary as brushing your teeth, or eating your favorite food. I died doing something that I love, so at least I have that. It's something, when I don't seem to have anything. It'll always be something._

_I was shot in the chest. Very noble, I know. The creep popped me off and fled as soon as I fell. My partner stayed with me for the few minutes I lived with a gunshot wound in me, trying desperately keep me alive, to no avail. When he realized her couldn't save me, he personally made it his mission to teach this jackass a lesson. When they caught the guy about 3 miles up the road, Mal punched his lights out. Very satisfying. _

_We'd been investigating a series of serial murders for a few months now. The leads kept pouring in, and I finally thought, _Wow, this is the case where we'll actually get to bring him back in handcuffs. We'll actually solve this one without someone dying or something going wrong.

_My mistake._

_Edgar Daniels. My personal murderer. It sounds like a butler when you say it like that, but I guess that's what he is. My killer. You see, it was Mal who was supposed to get shot. Not that I wish it had been him instead of me, but Edgar didn't mean to shoot me. I kind of got in the way, you know, saving Mal's life._

_It was what I had always wanted to do. That is, die protecting someone's life. When I joined the FBI I swore that I would always give my life for an innocent, and that's what I did. So in a way, I don't think I was really murderer. It's more like, a work related accident. Like an unfortunate situation in which a construction worker is buried under a pile of his own ruble? Yeah, been there done that. Turns out it was the jealous co -worker who didn't get the promotion. _

_I know I died. I'm dead. I look down on the life I used to have and I can't believe it. I never thought people would care so much if I died. I mean, people die everyday. I personally have viewed hundreds of murders in my life, and have conducted a few myself. But only to the scumbags who deserved it._

_People do care. They care so much more than I ever could have thought. My sister is pulling out her fingernails, screaming and tearing things apart. My mother won't leave her room. And my father, whom I had no idea cared for me at all, is weeping. Real genuine tears. It's amazing._

_And Mal. He's not the same. I doubt he ever will be. I miss him. I see him throwing a television and hurting himself, and ruining his life, and I want to help. I want to go all psycho mind-freaky on him like I used to, and convince him that his life is worth it. If it wasn't, I wouldn't have had any good reason to jump in front of that bullet that was meant for him. _

_Everyday I'm up in this strange new world, I wonder what I would be doing if I was alive. _Right now, I'd be going over the case files with Mal over lunch at the deli, and he'd make some kind of a joke about how these murders really worked up an appetite, and I'd swat him and laugh, and be so glad that I had him.

No more.

_He's worth it. Mal Is worth more than I've ever known. He wasn't just a partner. He was a friend, a best friend, or even more than that. I'll never really get to know now. But that's okay. I don't need to know. I just need to know that if I took my last breath on earth, and my blood drained into a pool around me, that everyone else would be okay. Everyone that I love and care about. _

_For now, I'm getting along fine. Sometimes it hits me all at once and I want to scream and cry and wonder why it had to be me. But those are the worst times. On good days, I'm thankful that I went out protecting someone I love, and that things on earth are moving right along, even without me. I know that Edgar's getting a life sentence or 2 for the 5 murders he committed, including mine, and it's enough. It's enough to know that because of me, he won't be able to kill anymore girls, ever again._

_And that'll always be good enough for me._

_**Would it be okay?**_


End file.
